On the Seasonality of Arctic Haze

1 On the Seasonality of Arctic Haze ∗ 2 Zhaoyi Shen 3 Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey. 4 Yi Ming, Larry W. Horowitz, V. Ramaswamy and Meiyun Lin 5 NOAA/Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, New Jersey. ∗ 6 Corresponding author address: Zhaoyi Shen, NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, 7 201 Forrestal Rd., Princeton, NJ 08540. 8 E-mail: [email protected] Generated using v4.3.2 of the AMS LATEX template 1 ABSTRACT 9 Arctic haze has a distinct seasonality with peak concentrations in winter but 10 pristine conditions in summer. It is demonstrated that the Geophysical Fluid 11 Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) atmospheric general circulation model AM3 12 can reproduce the observed seasonality of Arctic black carbon (BC), an im- 13 portant component of Arctic haze. We use the model to study how large-scale 14 circulation and removal drive the seasonal cycle of Arctic BC. It is found that 15 despite large seasonal shifts in the general circulation pattern, the transport 16 of BC into the Arctic varies little throughout the year. The seasonal cycle of 17 Arctic BC is attributed mostly to variations in the controlling factors of wet 18 removal, namely the hydrophilic fraction of BC and wet deposition efficiency 19 of hydrophilic BC. Specifically, a confluence of low hydrophilic fraction and 20 weak wet deposition, owing to slower aging process and less efficient mixed- 21 phase cloud scavenging, respectively, is responsible for the wintertime peak 22 of BC. The transition to low BC in summer is the consequence of a gradual 23 increase in the wet deposition efficiency, while the increase of BC in late fall 24 can be explained by a sharp decrease in the hydrophilic fraction. The results 25 presented here suggest that future changes in the aging and wet deposition 26 processes can potentially alter the concentrations of Arctic aerosols and their 27 climate effects. 2 28 1. Introduction 29 The accumulation of visibility-reducing aerosols in the Arctic during late winter and early spring 30 (known as Arctic haze) was first discovered in the 1950s (Mitchell 1957). The haze has its root 31 cause in the long-range transport of air pollution originating from the mid-latitude industrial re- 32 gions (Barrie 1986), and can have an influence on Arctic climate (Law and Stohl 2007). The haze 33 is a mixture of both light-scattering and light-absorbing aerosols. The aerosols pose strong radia- 34 tive perturbations by scattering and/or absorbing solar radiation, by interacting with clouds, and 35 by reducing the surface albedo when deposited onto snow and ice (Quinn et al. 2007). The surface 36 temperature in the Arctic increased more than the global average since the late 20th century, coin- 37 ciding with a rapid decline of sea ice (Bindoff et al. 2013). Besides greenhouse gases, decreased 38 (increased) scattering (absorbing) aerosols were postulated to have contributed to this amplified 39 Arctic climate change (Shindell and Faluvegi 2009). 40 Sulfate and black carbon (BC) are the dominant scattering and absorbing aerosols in the Arctic, 41 respectively (Law and Stohl 2007). Distinct seasonal cycles of Arctic sulfate and BC concentra- 42 tions are present in measurements. Surface observations at Alert and Barrow show that BC con- 43 centrations tend to peak during late winter and early spring before starting to decline in April, and 44 reach a minimum during summer (Sharma et al. 2006). Aircraft measurements of sulfate reveal 45 similar seasonal variations, with aerosol layers at higher altitudes persisting into May (Scheuer 46 2003). 47 Different hypotheses have been posited to explain the seasonal cycle of Arctic haze. Previous 48 studies have shown that European emissions dominate Arctic aerosols, with smaller contributions 49 from East Asia and North America (e.g., Stohl 2006; Shindell et al. 2008). A dynamically oriented 50 view holds that during the haze season (winter and spring), meridional transport from mid-latitude 3 51 source regions to the Arctic is stronger due to vigorous large-scale circulation. The presence of 52 Siberian high pressure helps steer polluted European air into the Arctic by transient and stationary 53 eddies (Barrie 1986; Iversen and Joranger 1985). The diabatic cooling of air traveling over ice and 54 snow also facilitates transport to the Arctic lower troposphere. In contrast, pollution is diabatically 55 transported to higher altitudes and diluted in summer (Klonecki et al. 2003). 56 A competing theory is that Arctic haze occurs in winter owing to slower removal. As a major 57 sink term for aerosols, wet scavenging by precipitation (rain and snow) is modulated heavily by 58 cloud microphysics. Aerosols are not effectively removed by ice clouds since soluble aerosols 59 such as sulfate are generally poor ice nuclei (IN). BC particles become effective IN only when 60 the temperature is below ∼240 K (Friedman et al. 2011). In mixed-phase clouds, the Bergeron 61 process (i.e. evaporation of liquid droplets in the presence of ice crystals) releases aerosols con- 62 tained in cloud droplets back into air (Cozic et al. 2008), so the wet scavenging in mixed-phase 63 clouds is much less efficient than in liquid clouds (Liu et al. 2011; Browse et al. 2012). The low 64 efficiency of ice cloud and mixed-phase cloud scavenging favors accumulation of aerosols at cold 65 temperatures. Dry deposition also has seasonal variations and is weaker in winter when the stable 66 boundary layer inhibits turbulent mixing (Quinn et al. 2007). It, however, accounts for only a small 67 portion of the total removal and affects mainly the surface concentrations of Arctic haze (Liu et al. 68 2011). Another key factor unique to BC is the aging process, which refers to the transformation 69 from hydrophobic to hydrophilic aerosols due to coating by soluble species (Petters et al. 2006). 70 Only aged BC particles can act as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN) and be removed by in-cloud 71 scavenging. As a result, the aging rate has a large effect on global BC concentrations and distribu- 72 tions. Experimental studies have found that condensation of gaseous sulfuric acid (H2SO4) is an 73 effective aging mechanism for BC particles (Zhang et al. 2008); reduced concentrations of H2SO4 4 74 due to slower oxidation of SO2 by the hydroxyl radical (OH) in winter results in a lower aging rate 75 and thus weaker wet deposition (Liu et al. 2011). 76 It is important to note that the aforementioned mechanisms (namely large-scale circulation, 77 cloud microphysics and aging) are not mutually exclusive; they could all act to induce season- 78 ality. Yet, the relative importance of these mechanisms in shaping the pronounced seasonal cycle 79 of Arctic haze remains unclear. While it is hard to separate these factors cleanly using observations 80 alone, we approach the issue here using a comprehensive global model. In this study we apply 81 an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) to analyze the factors controlling the seasonal 82 cycle of Arctic haze with a focus on BC, an important constituent of Arctic haze with a potentially 83 important influence on Arctic climate. 84 2. Model Description 85 This study uses the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL) AM3 AGCM (Donner 86 et al. 2011) with a cubed-sphere grid resolution of ∼100 km and 48 hybrid vertical levels from 87 the surface to ∼1 Pa. We conduct a six-year hindcast simulation (2008-2013), following one year 88 of spin-up. The emission inventories reflect 2008-2013 conditions. Anthropogenic emissions of 89 aerosol and ozone precursors with seasonal variations are based on Hemispheric Transport of Air 90 Pollution (HTAP) v2 - a mosaic of regional and global emission inventories for the years 2008 and 91 2010 (Janssens-Maenhout et al. 2015), and are held constant after 2010. Daily-resolving biomass 92 burning emissions for 2008-2013 are adopted from the Fire Inventory from National Center for 93 Atmospheric Research (NCAR) (Wiedinmyer et al. 2011) and emitted in the model surface layer. 94 The model is forced with observed sea surface temperatures and sea ice, and horizontal winds are 95 nudged to the reanalyses from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Global ◦ ◦ 96 Forecasting System at approximately 1.4 ×1.4 horizontal resolution using a pressure-dependent 5 97 nudging technique (Lin et al. 2012). The latter makes it possible to compare model simulations 98 with observations for specific flight campaigns. 99 The treatment of BC in AM3 used in this study differs from that described by Donner et al. 100 (2011), and has been discussed extensively by Liu et al. (2011) and Fan et al. (2012); here we 101 summarize briefly the key features. AM3 includes two types of BC: hydrophobic (BCpo) and 102 hydrophilic (BCpi). 80% (40%) of BC emitted from anthropogenic (biomass burning) sources 103 is assumed to be hydrophobic. The hydrophobic BC is then converted to the hydrophilic form 104 at a variable aging rate (Liu et al. 2011), which depends on condensation of sulfuric acid (the 105 rate of which is assumed to be proportional to OH concentrations) and other processes such as 106 coagulation (represented by adding a small constant term to the aging rate coefficient, see Section 107 6 for more discussion). Only hydrophilic BC can be removed by in-cloud scavenging, which is −1 108 parameterized using a first-order rate coefficient (kscav, s ) (Fan et al. 2012): Fscav;1Prain + Fscav;2(1 − fberg)Psnow + Fscav;3 fbergPsnow kscav = ; (1) Qliq + Qice −3 −1 109 where Prain and Psnow are the 3-dimensional rain and snow rates (kg m s ), respectively, and −3 110 Qliq and Qice the liquid and ice cloud water contents (kg m ), respectively.

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